The myth of Tory economic competence should be confronted every time that it's suggested. The Tories don’t tell you that they needed an IMF loan in 1956, that they left behind a huge balance of payments deficit in 1964 (which Labour turned into a surplus by 1970), that they gave us double-digit inflation in 1974 and then left a debt equivalent to 43.76% of GDP in 1997. They don’t tell you that in the month before Thatcher was booted out in 1990, inflation was higher than when she came in, or that the Tories left office in 1997 with unemployment higher than when they came to power on the strength of those ‘Labour isn’t working’ posters in 1979. They don’t mention the two recessions their policies caused in the 1980s, and they certainly won’t talk about ‘Black Wednesday’ in 1992.

The other side of the coin is to peddle the lie that every Labour government leaves behind a financial mess. It wasn’t true in 1951, not true in 1970 and not true in 1979. Much of the IMF loan sought in 1976 (following the effects of the quadrupling of the price of oil) was never taken up, and the economy was growing steadily until Thatcherism was inflicted on it.

'The mess' was only true in 2010 because Gordon Brown had no alternative but to bail out the bankers when global capitalism proved itself to be a failure, but even then the economy had started to grow until Osborne stamped on the green shoots of recovery. The longest uninterrupted period of growth in the UK economy in the last 200 years occurred when Brown was chancellor of the exchequer. The Tories supported Labour’s spending plans until the global credit crunch occurred, and the Tories supported the bailout of their banking cronies, who Cameron thought had been subject to too much regulation. The UK's deficit prior to the global financial crisis (which few economists predicted, which no politicians could have avoided and which could hardly be blamed on one government's fiscal policy) was lower than it had been in the mid-1990s. But trust the Tories not to let the truth ever get in the way of their mythology.

Phil Hornby wrote:-Given the now all too obvious lack of confidence in the erstwhile party leadership, why did those who voted Labour actually do so if they hated the 'powers that were' so much?

Ah, I'm pleased to see that our 'quote' facility does still work.....

Ed Miliband is a decent bloke, not something you’d ever say about Cameron. He had some good policies, but they clearly didn’t go far enough to attract those who instead chose to vote Green, SNP or UKIP – or the 34% of the electorate who didn’t vote at all. Maybe he was too timid, and he made a few gaffes – posing with a copy of ‘The Sun’, forgetting some of his speech, and that bloody stupid headstone at the end of the campaign. However, as I’ve said many times before, anything positive from the Labour Party hasn’t been reported in recent years, not even by the now cowed BBC. For example, Andy Burnham’s major policy initiative in January 2014 on merging health and social care was largely ignored by the media. Whether Jeremy Corbyn will be any more effective in getting Labour’s policies reported, only time will tell.

When you only get the chance to register your opinion on the government once every five years, most people with an interest in politics will, as oftenwrong says, choose the least worst option if they don’t feel positive about any of the parties. For example, I’d still vote Labour if, very unlikely though it is, Liz Kendall was leading the party at the next election. If anyone hates the Tories as much as most people on this forum seem to do, surely the logical response is to register that by voting - and by voting against them in the most effective manner?

Speaking of the Tories, why is it taken as axiomatic that they are better at running the economy? Thatcher came to power in 1979 determined to squeeze inflation out of the system. At the time it was 10.3%, a year later it was over 21%. In October 1990, the last full month before she was booted out by her colleagues, it was 10.9%. Her government spent billions of pounds from North Sea oil and privatisations and had nothing to show for it.

Even a Tory has admitted that Labour in 1997 inherited a deficit of 3.9% of GDP (not a balanced budget), and that by 2008 it had fallen to 2.1%. Labour also inherited a debt of 42% of GDP; by the start of the global banking crisis of 2008, the debt had fallen to 35%:-

It's probably true to say that a Tory administration will be good at running an economy that suits it and also its supporters. The self-styled Leading Class have had several hundred years in which to do that, and at the same time impress the oicks that it's a perfectly normal arrangement which is to their advantage as well. Just have to chuck the varlets a bag of gold occasionally, or stage a Royal Occasion, to stop their mouths.

The East Coast Railway line between London and Edinburgh was leased to Virgin and Stagecoach for £3.3bn over the eight years commencing in 2014. The companies expected to earn 8% to 12% a year but actual receipts so far are running at only 5.2% pa.

The track is maintained by Network Rail, which is being forced by Whitehall to cut back on modernisation plans and even to reduce the amount of repair work. Accordingly the expensive new trains ordered for 2018 will not be able to run at full capacity.

No doubt the train operators will be looking for some compensation from government.

The term "spin doctors" seems to have fallen out of common newspaper parlance, but hyperbole such as "axiomatic" will never be far from their pages. Like rhetorical questions and feigning insulted innocence.

The public have to begin realising that the Tory façade of competence and economic sense is a lie. What with Osborne's incompetent reign as chancellor, and Cameron's vanity leading us into a disastrous EU referendum, and then leaving us with May and her bunch of out of touch dithering incompetents in charge the Tory party in government are wreaking havoc and bringing nothing but uncertainty to the UK and people's lives. They are a dangerous bunch of extremist lunatics managing the country on a whim, a wing, and a prayer. They have turned this country into a low wage economy, devalued our currency which now stands at a 31yr low, led us to a point where businesses are uncertain of the future and this in turn risks jobs, and continue to wreak havoc on the NHS and other infrastructure and institutions, the Brexiteers among them exploited immigration issues and have thus exacerbated tensions around integration/race/divisions; and people seem to believe they are the sensible, rational, 'boring' government we need??????!!!! It beggars belief that people are gullible enough to fall for these loony right wing Tories.It's unbelievable that Corbyn and Labour get labelled as incompetent and incapable of government when it is the crazy Conservatives who are the ones on the wrecking spree.Corbyn is right again, as he so often is. His suggestion that we remain in the free trade agreement in the EU and accept that means free movement of people/labour is the only sensible way to negotiate this Brexit mess. He'll get little praise, or credit, for suggesting it but he is right; and I wouldn't be surprised if that is what eventually happens when the terms of Brexit are negotiated.

After more than eleven years of Tory government, the UK joined the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) in October 1990. At that time, interest rates were 15% and inflation was three times the rate in the newly-unified Germany. House prices in the UK were falling for the first time ever in peacetime, and they continued to do so until 1995.

It’s hard to believe that anyone old enough to remember Norman Lamont rushing around like a headless chicken on ‘Black Wednesday’ in September 1992 could ever consider the Tories to be economically competent. The fool exchanged our foreign currency reserves for sterling, which he then devalued, costing the country well over £3 billion. He put up interest rates by 5% in one day, all to no avail because we were forced out of the ERM.

Thanks to their friends in the media, the Tories have a reputation for fiscal responsibility which is based on nothing at all. They sell state assets on the cheap, often to their cronies, but they still manage to squander the money, sometimes in tax cuts for people who don’t need them, rather than spend it on the nation’s infrastructure, just as they wasted the proceeds of North Sea oil. Every target which Osborne set was missed, and every promise which he made has been abandoned.

The current state of the economy is probably more dire than we’re being told. When the pound falls in value, as it's been doing since last November, when it was worth 1.43 euros (as I write it’s at 1.134 euros, over 20% lower), the solution is to raise interest rates to make it more attractive to investors. However, even though rates are at an historic low, any rise would probably plunge the country into recession. Some people argue that although the low value of the pound makes imports and foreign holidays more expensive, it makes it easier for exporters to sell our goods and services abroad. But that doesn’t apply if components for the goods have to be imported.

Our new chancellor, Philip Hammond, may seem slightly less obnoxious than many other Tory politicians, but he doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. On 27 October 2008, when he was shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, he gave an interview for BBC News in which he said that “increasing borrowing is not a strategy for dealing with the recession”. Later in that very same interview he said: “To increase borrowing to deal with an economic downturn - that’s a perfectly sensible thing to do”. We’ll see if he makes as big a mess of things as Osborne and Lamont (not to mention Lawson) did under previous Tory PMs.

Ahh, 1992. I remember it well. My savings account was earning more money than I could get from working. (Now interest rates are so derisory, Savers earn money for the banks). The other side of that coin was British businesses going bust at the rate of more than 100 a day, as a result of the domino effect whereby all the suppliers not paid by a large firm could not pay the people to whom they owed money, and so on ad infinitum.

Post-Brexit, the line of supplicant industries grows longer with each passing day. It's a given that a Tory government will help its pals in the City to survive - they went to school together. Apparently a Japanese/French car factory in the North-East is to be insulated from the cold winds, (but no-one to know in what manner), and now Giant Pharma beseeches a Billion or so to continue their R & D if European money stops. Network Rail says it can't be expected to complete electrification of the London > South Wales line (cost up from £548M to £2.8Billion) and at the same time maintain the rest of the railway system.

I would appreciate a hand with my Energy Bills this Winter if anyone is listening, please.

"Warming", as in Whisky, always gets my attention Phil, but I was actually thinking about Ofgem when I posted originally. You know, the quango that safeguards the nation's energy consumers by doing as the Industry tells it.

Dividends paid to the parent company Kemble Water Holdings are up by £5 million to £25 million, to “service its debt obligations”. Thames Water said that its existing shareholders - including the BT pension fund, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and the China Investment Corporation - would be approached and given the option of first refusal before external buyers could bid for the shares.

Thames Water was sold by Germany’s RWE for £8bn in 2006 to Kemble Water Holdings, a consortium established by one of Macquarie’s infrastructure investment funds.

Kemble’s roster of shareholders includes pension funds and institutions from the UK and Europe, Canada, Australia, the Middle East and China.

Labour mess things up and the Tories come in and fix things......isn't that the line the Tories like to push? What a joke, and what a big fat lie. The Tory wrecking ball has been allowed to swing for six years......we're in a bigger mess than ever; and there is still no vision, focus, or plan from these 'make it up as we fumble along' loony Tories.

When are we going to realise it is no good, and false economy, to only impose austerity on the poor. Time to cut the crap and stop ignoring the elephant in the room.Tax any earnings above £80k at 60% now, before it's too late.

All the Tories are obsessed with is staying in power. It is clear now they are all about slick presentation, all about appearing competent, in control, and in charge. It is also evident now, after six years, they are in fact entirely incompetent, and out of control. Behind the veneer chaos reigns. It is time to remove this terrible destructive government before it inflicts any more damage.

How to get the country into debt, increase inequality overnight, and ensure we will not collect enough revenue to pay for essential services and infrastructure:

Margaret Thatcher, who favoured indirect taxation, reduced personal income tax rates during the 1980s. In the first budget after her election victory in 1979, the top rate was reduced from 83% to 60% and the basic rate from 33% to 30%. The basic rate was also cut for three successive budgets - to 29% in the 1986 budget, 27% in 1987 and to 25% in 1988. The top rate of income tax was cut to 40% in the 1988 budget. The investment income surcharge was abolished in 1985.Under the government of John Major the basic rate was reduced in stages to 23% by 1997.

......and some wonder why we're struggling with the national housekeeping, can't pay our bills, and are resorting to quantitative easing.

Taxpayers will foot the bill for the cost of the strikes due to Govia’s unique deal with the Government. Under the seven-year deal, the Government pays Govia more than £1 billion a year to run the service.

Ministers agreed to bear the financial risk of running the railway because of the significant disruption caused by the redevelopment of London Bridge railway station. In return the fees Southern collects in fares are passed to the Government.

It means that during the 20 days lost to strikes this year – when there are no fares to collect – the Government must bear the cost of £38 million in lost revenue.

The deal also states that the Government will pick up the tab for compensation claims likely to be filed by passengers who have paid season ticket fares but have no services to catch – an estimated £15 million.

The foreign aid department has “unquestionably failed” British taxpayers after “staggering” errors led to nearly £300million being spent on a remote island airport that is unsuitable for commercial flights because of wind.

MPs on the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) attacked the development department for not foreseeing that dangerous wind conditions on the South Atlantic territory of St Helena would mean that commercial aircraft would be unable to use a new airport.

Perec "Peter" Rachman (1919 – 29 November 1962) was a landlord of Polish-Jewish origin, who operated in Notting Hill, London, England in the 1950s and early 1960s. He became notorious for his exploitation of his tenants, with the word "Rachmanism" entering the Oxford English Dictionary as a synonym for the exploitation and intimidation of tenants.

Wikipedia - is this where we're going? I just about remember this - it was a big news item when I was young - where I live, quite small houses being subdivided and let to sub-tenants and most too scared to look for help - until the 'landlord' defaults on the rent

We certainly need to be reminded from time to time about Rachman, and his successor Van Hoogstraten who each spotted a way around "protected tenancies" by persuading tenants they really didn't want to stay in their flats (converted from mansions) after the stairs had been removed and electricity turned off. The topic coincides with CE thread Has ‘the Right to Buy’ and lack of rent controls caused most of the UK’s housing problems?

Clever people will always try to circumvent Laws which aim to stop unfair practice where there is a scarcity of housing, and the only real solution is to build more. So why don't we? Write to your MP about it.